Easter’s Oak Leaf

I saw Death
And I grieved, right then
Stock still, I recalled the you of summers past, at your finest
Suave sentinel, on duty at the front door
Loosely, artistically lounging at your post
Terribly handsome, careless and oblivious to shape or direction, reclining where you pleased
Your blossom deliveries grew more robust every season, mellowing with the summer sun
Until tinged with pink gold dust, though your nearby friends bowed and curled in heat’s surrender
How I’ll miss you, I thought, averting my gaze from your bare limbs, ugly, chicken-bone stalks shedding nasty scales from ragged ends
Guess we’ll have to cut you down.
But a stay was granted, an unseen judge knew more than I
When a few mornings later the cold spring wind coyly waved a branch at me and the dog
Look here look here look here, the wind waved, at these tiny, itty bitty green tips, just two, tentatively emerging from the jagged drumstick end
And I remembered that nature books her own appointments, strictly on her own time, her calendar revealed to none in this life
And I remembered to hope.